Bill O'Reilly's accuser had a crush on the talk show host and voluntarily engaged in "intimate" phone talks with him, according to a former friend of the woman.
But at some point, the ex-pal said, O'Reilly's relationship with Andrea Mackris went sour - and she vowed to take her boss down in a juicy tell-all book.
Restaurateur Matthew Paratore gave a sworn statement to O'Reilly's lawyers, saying he thought he had "something they should know."
At his North West restaurant on the upper West Side, Paratore told the Daily News that Mackris is not your typical sex-harassment victim.
"She loved the guy. She admired him," said Paratore, 38. "She respected him."
"From one of those conversations grew a relationship where they would have more intimate talk over the phone," he said. "From what she told me, I wouldn't characterize it as phone sex. This was not harassment. It was very clear to me that this was their little banter back and forth. This was their game or something."
Mackris, 33, an associate producer with "The O'Reilly Factor," filed a lawsuit last week claiming O'Reilly sexually harassed her in phone-sex calls.
